In Manchuria (2014)
“CHAPTER 8 To the Manchuria Station!
The Manchu came to power on horseback and had shown little interest in—or understanding of—railroads. The empress dowager had not allowed tracks to enter Beijing, as they would pierce the city’s wall. In 1888 her ministers installed a small train within the Forbidden City that ran between her quarters and dining hall. She would ride in it only if eunuchs pulled the cars. The steam engine’s clatter, she said, would disrupt the palace’s feng shui.
But only twen...ty-five years later, a Scottish missionary stationed in the Northeast wrote: “There are few parts of the world where the modern change in ease of access has been more marked than in Manchuria. One can now leave London at nine o’clock on a Monday morning, and after a comfortable sleeping-car [train] journey drive through [Manchurian] streets in the afternoon of Friday, eleven days later. The contrast with thirty years ago, and indeed with thirteen years ago, is greater than the contrast between that time and the days of sailing ships.”MoreLess
The Manchu came to power on horseback and had shown little interest in—or understanding of—railroads. The empress dowager had not allowed tracks to enter Beijing, as they would pierce the city’s wall. In 1888 her ministers installed a small train within the Forbidden City that ran between her quarters and dining hall. She would ride in it only if eunuchs pulled the cars. The steam engine’s clatter, she said, would disrupt the palace’s feng shui.
But only twen...ty-five years later, a Scottish missionary stationed in the Northeast wrote: “There are few parts of the world where the modern change in ease of access has been more marked than in Manchuria. One can now leave London at nine o’clock on a Monday morning, and after a comfortable sleeping-car [train] journey drive through [Manchurian] streets in the afternoon of Friday, eleven days later. The contrast with thirty years ago, and indeed with thirteen years ago, is greater than the contrast between that time and the days of sailing ships.”MoreLess
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